EP. 213 - LOUISIANA: He Killed The Pedophile Who Molested His Son On Live TV: The Gary Plauche Story

Warning, the following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned. It was a single gunshot that was heard around the world. A murder caught on television for all to see. 39-year-old father of four Gary Ploshet stood behind the smoking gun. On the floor lay his former friend, 25-year-old Jeff Dussett, killed by a single shot to the head. Cops swarmed Gary, who dropped his gun and began to sob. As this footage played over and over and over again on the television in the spring of 1983, there was one line that became infamous. Seconds after Gary pulled a trigger and killed Jeff, a detective screamed, "Why Gary? Why?" To many of the millions watching the footage, the answer to that question was clear, because Jeff deserved it. To others, the murder was an unjustified death. And to us, that footage is a moment, and a long, important story of child sexual abuse that is worth talking about and reflecting on even 40 years later. This is the story of Gary Ploshet, who shot and killed a man who raped and kidnapped his son, Jodi, at its core. It's the story of a family's love, a groomer's tactics, and a young boy's bravery. I'm Courtney Browen, and I'm Colin Browen. I'm Jodi Ploshet. I'm the author of the book Why Gary Why. I'm a victim advocate, and I'm a sexual abuse victim from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And you're listening to Murder in America. [Music] [Music] When Jodi Ploshet was growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, there were three things that he was afraid of, rats, snakes, and kidnappers. This was the 1970s and early 80s, when the public perception of kidnappers was strange men and trench coats, waiting to jump out of the bushes and grab unsuspecting kids. It was the era of stranger danger, where, at every turn, it seemed like kids were being bombarded with ads warning of creepy strangers on the street who would lure them into a van under the guise of having puppies or candy. In Louisiana, between episodes of Buckskin Bill and Sesame Street, kids watched, wide-eyed, as PSAs just like this one played. You've taught your children to be polite and friendly, but have you taught them when not to be? Hi there! Do you live around here? Are you going to school? Yes. Well, I could give you a ride. Last year, 50,000 children disappeared. Many of them from nice, safe neighborhoods. Okay. Come on, help me. Talk to your children about not talking to strangers and do it today. A message for your child safety from the American Medical Association. Jody was one of those kids, yet the kidnapper that was going to come for him was an stranger. It was someone that his family loved and trusted. In fact, growing up, there were very few people in Baton Rouge who felt like strangers to Jody and his family. His father, Leon Gary plus Shay, was friends with everyone. Now as a little background on Gary's upbringing, he too grew up in Baton Rouge. And according to his teachers, he was a bit of a problem child. His third grade teacher told his parents that if he could just behave himself, she would give him an A. But that proved to be challenging for the hyperactive, passionate little boy. And by the end of that school year, he came home with a C on his report card. But despite being a bit of a rebel, he was loved by everyone. Beneath his impulsive nature, in penchant for getting in trouble, he was a soft-hearted and helpful person throughout his life. He took care of any stray animal he stumbled upon. And it wasn't unusual for every trip he took in town to take an extra hour, just because he had to stop and talk to everyone he knew. Jody remembers as a little kid being annoyed by this, but in time, it's something he grew to love. It's something that made Gary bigger than life, and magnetic to anyone who encountered him, including Jody's mother, June Ann. June was born in the Bronx in 1948. By the time she was two, her family moved to Baton Rouge, where she was raised in a small, simple house with her six siblings. She attended a tiny Catholic school, and soon after graduating, she got a job singing at a local club. She hadn't grown up in a house where love was shown abundantly. Her father, who died when she was 17, had only told her that he loved her a single time, just hours before he passed away. Perhaps that's why June was so quickly and so passionately drawn to the funny, vibrant man who came into her club in November of 1969. By then, Gary had been a medic in the United States Air Force, and looking to relax, he found himself watching June sing. After just a month-long courtship, the two got married on Christmas, 1969. When Jody later asked his mother why she had married his dad so quickly, she smiled and said, "Because he made me laugh." From everything we've read, there were a lot of things that Gary did well, but making people laugh was something that he excelled at, even in the face of darkness. And it's a trait that he passed on to his son, Jody. Jody was born Joseph Boyce-Ploche on April 27, 1972. He was the second child of the couple, the first being Gary Jr., who went by Bubba. By the time Jody was born, his parents' relationship had seen better days. At that point, Gary was working as a liquor distributor, and his predilection for alcohol took precedence over being home with his family. After work, he would spend long hours drinking with clients, and by the time he returned, June was exhausted and frustrated from raising the children herself. Just before Jody was born, she had planned to leave Gary, but her pregnancy put a wrench in things. She only had a high school education, and finding a way to support her kids as a single mother wouldn't be easy. She stayed with Gary, though, through much of Jody's childhood, and Jody's parents were distant with one another, acting sometimes more like co-workers than true loving partners. While Gary went to work, June stayed home, raising what ended up being four children, including Jody's younger siblings, Mikey and Sissy. With all those kids, June had no intention of leaving her husband anytime soon. But despite his parents' strained relationship, Jody and his siblings grew up in a loving home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. To this day, Jody lived just down the street from where he grew up. For him, as you'll see, the memories of love and community far outweigh the negative things he would experience there. And as we delve deeper into his perspective and positive attitude, it's easy to see why. Even if I include the messed up events, or the events, I consider my childhood great. Growing up, I played sports, I would play football, basketball, softball, soccer. And let me just pay a little tribute to Kevin Kuig. He was my soccer coach, and he just passed away earlier this month. So, I was just school and sporting practice in games. And so, no, I had a great childhood. My family was wonderful. And like I said, even including all the other things, I still consider my childhood great. Every Saturday, his parents would get together with his aunts and uncles for a family game night. The kids would either join in or head out into the muggy Louisiana night to play tag or kick the can. On Sundays, the family would go to Jody's grandparents' house for a Sunday meal. Now, Baton Rouge is one of the culinary capitals of the South. As an adult, Jody frequently posts recipes from Louisiana, like crawfish at Tufay, jambalaya, and chicken and sausage gumbo. The family bonded over food, and to this day, they still do. But throughout his life, Jody was surrounded by people who loved him and a community that knew his whole family. In a lot of ways, that saved him. In other ways, that complicated things. Though the 1970s were years of free love, a lot of families still took a traditional approach when it came to broaching taboo topics with their kids. In Louisiana, sex ed wasn't even allowed in schools until 1979. And when it was finally allowed, it was ordered to be abstinence-only education. Even today. Sexual health education in Louisiana is only permitted for children in grades 7 through 12. When Jody was raped for the first time, he was in the 5th grade. Now, we aren't policy makers, but the fact that children can experience sexual abuse, but can't be educated on what it is, just sounds to us like they're being put even more at risk. Fortunately, despite the rules in the common culture in his state, Jody's mother stepped up to the plate to educate him on sex and sexual health from a young age. When Jody was about 5 years old, he overheard his older brother's basketball team giggling and joking about sex. It was the first time he had ever heard of the concept, and of course, as some younger siblings know, he wanted to be a part of the conversation. He joined in with the joking, clinging to every word the older boys were saying. Now Jody came from a house where he could tell his mother almost everything without shame or blame. So as soon as he got home, he told her everything about what he had heard, and this brand-new concept of sex. Though what the 9-year-old knew about sex was just about as accurate as you can imagine, June was less horrified that her 5-year-old son had come to talk to her about it, and more horrified by how inaccurate the things he was saying were. Now she thought Jody was too young to hear about every detail of sex, but she would rather he knew the facts and the truth than inaccurate rumors from classmates. So from there, she gave him a general rundown about what sex is. And as he continued to grow, she didn't shy away from the topic. As an adult, Jody believes that this is why he was able to come to terms with what happened to him and understand the abuse as it was happening. June encouraged her kids to watch after-school specials that touched on tough topics like abuse, child pornography, cancer, and grief. In particular, Jody remembers watching a 1981 special, fallen angel, about a man named Howie who takes a job as a coach of a girl's soccer team in order to get close to the children and force them into child pornography. We watched the film, and honestly, even for being 40 years old, it tackles the topic of grooming incredibly well. Howie isolates a girl who has lost her father, showers her with toys, money, and the things that she needs the most, love and attention. He forces her to perform in child sexual abuse material, threatening to never speak to her again and to hurt her dog, Fred, if she refuses. Like many predators, he takes the thing she fears the most, being alone, and uses it to control her. Here's a short snippet of the film, where Howard is trying to coerce the young girl into getting undressed. I want you to do an angel, if you don't, you lose me, I'm all you have. My mom! Have you thought about when they get married? They could send you away. He certainly doesn't want you, who wants to raise someone else's kid. Howard, I can't. I like you. This type of coercive control is the same kind that Jody faced just a year after this film aired, and a year after June unknowingly helped arm her child with the knowledge he needed to survive the ordeal ahead of him. But after June showed her children the videos, she would explain them more in depth and give her kids a chance to ask questions. Jody remembers his mom telling him, "If anything happens, you aren't to blame yourself, because grownups are stronger than children and should know better." In his book, Why Gary Why, Jody writes that the transparent conversation with his mother made all the difference, saying, "I knew that I wasn't the one that was crazy, I knew that he was the one that had something wrong with him." It was the fall of 1982, when Jody was first introduced to the idea of taking karate lessons. And from the get-go, he wasn't a fan. Jody was a star athlete. He loved baseball, basketball, and football, and he worked his butt off to make sure he was at the top of his game on all of the teams. At this point, he was in the fifth grade, and he knew what he wanted to dedicate his energy to. When the school handed out flyers advertising after school karate lessons, Jody crumbled his up and threw it away. And if you have siblings, you likely know how it goes. Baba, Jody's older brother, was interested in the karate lessons. And so was the child of a very close family friend. After hearing the excitement from Baba and the family friend, June signed up all of the boys for lessons, Jody Baba, and Mikey. Now the first two lessons took place at a local elementary school, and while Jody wasn't hooked on it, he also didn't mind it. However, just two lessons in, a little controversy rocked the small community. The original karate teacher skipped town. After taking money from the parents who paid for the whole season in advance, with the original karate teacher gone, the school went on a hunt to find a replacement coach who would honor the prepaid lessons. And that's when they found 23-year-old Jeff Dussett. Jeff Dussett was born on February 3rd, 1959, which as an adult, Jody finds fitting, considering it's the day that Buddy Holly, Richie Valenz, and the Big Bopper Richardson died in a plane crash, otherwise known as the day that music died. Later in life, Jeff would play music by the Big Bopper while he assaulted Jody. From the sound of things, sexual assault was the center of Jeff's life from a very young age. It told Jody and law enforcement that he had been molested by several of his mother's boyfriends, and that when she found out she did nothing. As a result, he felt helpless and unwanted, other reports state that he was sold for sex. Either way, it's very clear that there was a trauma in his upbringing. He only received a sixth grade education before he left school entirely. He claims that when he was 14, after refusing to have sex with one of his mother's boyfriends, he was beaten up. Before being abused, he ran away, but was soon dragged back by the police. As a result, his mother sent him to live with his older brother in Simmy Valley, California. He stayed there for an unknown length of time, but it's believed that he was back in Louisiana by the time he was 17. There, he ran scams and hustled to make ends meet. In addition, he began teaching karate lessons. It's not unusual for pedophiles to take jobs that involve being around children, and Jeff obviously picked a line of work that would have put him incredibly close to them. A job that even allowed him to touch children under the guise of coaching, without rousing much suspicion. Jody and his brothers first lesson with Jeff was sometime in December of 1982. And one thing that's very important to understand is that everyone loved Jeff. There are two things that acting pedophiles focus on. Affilling their sexual needs and ensuring they aren't caught. And if that means presenting themselves like Santa Claus or Mr. Rogers, they will do it. And that's exactly what Jeff did. He encouraged the kids in their lessons, made them laugh, and acted like a kid himself. He treated them all like equals, and he even went the extra mile. He made it a priority to take the kids to pizza, the mall, or the movies before or after lessons. And he presented everything to the parents as team building. After the plo-shay boys' first lesson, he invited them along with his team to go to Chuckie Cheese. And if you're trying to get kids to like and trust you, there really isn't a better place you could take them. And Jeff knew that. But the boys' mother, June, was cautious. She even asked Jody's uncle Robert, who was a police officer, if he could run a background check on Jeff to set. He told June that he ran it and it came back clean, which put June at ease. But in reality, Jeff had already done plenty that should have put him behind bars, and he had even been arrested for it. But June wouldn't discover this until years later. Not wanting to be too overprotective and seeing no reason why her sons couldn't go, June agreed. The boys went to the movies with Jeff to see they call me Bruce, a Kung Fu parody. Jody distinctly remembers thinking that the movie wasn't good, but it was worth it for where they were going afterwards. Chuckie Cheese. When they arrived, they were allowed to run loose in the entertainment center, jumping in ball pits, playing arcade games, and eating pizza until their stomachs hurt. All the while, Jeff stood by their sides, joining in on the fun and encouraging the kids, making them feel special. Coincidentally, that night, Jody's parents were actually at Chuckie Cheese's to attend a family birthday party. They got to see Jeff in action, and they liked what they saw. He was considered, he made the kids laugh, and he seemed to look out for them in cra- incredibly well. As you'll see, groomers don't just groom the children that they're after, they groom the people around those children, breaking down barriers and their view of normal interactions over time by gaining their trust. At Chucky Cheese that night, that's exactly what Jeff set out to do, and his plan worked brilliantly. We met up with the family, so he got to meet my aunts, my uncles, my parents. He got to meet everybody, so that was his way of kind of grooming the family, and, you know, he integrated himself into being like a fun guy, very charismatic, and yeah, so they kind of welcomed him. Yeah, I mean, he told them that, and this was early on, that the reason why he loved kids and he loved being around kids, he said that when he was like seven years old, he had to accident, and he literally was climbing over a fence and his, you know, sack got caught on the fence, and so basically got to bisect me indirectly, so that's why he loved kids. So I think that kind of took the sexual perversion off the table, so my parents were kind of like, oh, okay, you don't want, you can't have sex, so that's why he loves kids, so he won't have sex with our kids. And that was just kind of part of the grooming process. Soon, Jeff moved the karate lessons from a local school to a building closer to Jody's home. At first, everyone loved the lessons. Jeff made them fun, and he made all the young boys feel as though they were grown-ups. If you remember what it felt like to be 8, 10, 12, you know how effective that can be. Most kids want to be taken seriously and spoken to like their adults. And Jeff doing that was just one more way that he could gain their respect and admiration. He was different from their parents. He didn't make them go to bed early, didn't say that they couldn't cuss, and let them eat what they wanted. When you're a kid with little autonomy, that's like striking gold. To all the members of his fighting team, that's exactly what it felt like. As classes continued into the new year, Jeff started to purposefully run them over the allotted time, apologizing to the parents and telling them that they were practicing for a competition. He looked like a committed teacher, and when he offered to just drop the boys off, he was helping struggling parents have one less thing on their to-do list. Once more, this was all part of the plan. When he finally dropped the boys off at home, he would chat with the parents sometimes for hours at a time, even sitting down to have dinner with them. He became not just a coach, but a part of the family that everyone, including Jody's parents, admired. Pedophiles and groomers will often introduce kids to things that are off limits in order to gain further control over them. Some people refer to these as "the three Ds of grooming," dirty content, drugs, and driving. By exposing kids to pornography or substances, groomers have something that they can hold over a child's head and uses a form of control. They can coerce kids into performing sexual acts by threatening to tell their parents they've been looking at porn, or using drugs if they refuse. In Jody's case, Jeff didn't introduce him to porn or drugs. Instead, whenever he would take the kids home from lessons, Jeff would let them drive his sports car. He would urge one of the boys to sit on his lap and hold the wheel, meanwhile he would control the clutch, brake, and gas. For most boys that age, being allowed to drive a sports car on a real road is a dream. Jody remembers the first time he got control of the wheel. Jeff sat him on his lap, and they were off, driving down the streets of Baton Rouge beneath live oaks and magnolia trees straight in Spanish moss. Jody was excited, but then a flash of uncertainty shot through him. As they drove down the road, Jeff's hands just barely grazed his crotch. You remember as brushing it off at first, thinking that Jeff would usually have his hands on the wheel, so he probably just wasn't sure what to do with them while Jody was driving. But with each time Jody drove, the touches got bolder. What originally was barely grazing his crotch, became gross and long lingering touches. Jody remembered thinking, "Oh, is Jeff like Howie from Fallen Angel?" Just the fact that Jody knew pedophiles existed, and that their actions were inappropriate made a huge difference in his own self-worth, moving forward. Because from this point, Jeff got more praise than he did. Hey everyone, Colin here, just a very quick interruption. If you could please take 5-10 seconds out of your day, and if you haven't already left us a 5-star review on whatever platform you're listening to the show on, please just take a moment today and go do that for Courtney and I. Good reviews can help boost the show, help us to get discovered by other listeners, and also, we love hearing from everybody and seeing your reviews and seeing your kind words. We don't really have a place to interact with y'all, so on the reviews is one place where we just love hearing from everybody that listens. But anyways, let's get back to the story. Just wanted to drop that reminder in here and thank you to everyone who's done it before and who's going to do it now. Pedophiles like to test boundaries. Jody says in interviews as an adult, I guess I passed his test. By starting by touching children in a way that they could easily brush off as an accident, they can see which children will tell adults, which children will fight back, and which children won't react at all. In this case, Jody didn't react at all. Now of course, this isn't at all to blame Jody. Pedophiles grew in such a way that children have a hard time identifying things that are inappropriate, and they're in a position of power that makes it hard for them to say no. In Jody's case, he later came to terms with the fact that Jeff had begun testing his boundaries even sooner than this incident, under the guise of teaching him. In this interview with the unsubscribed podcast, he describes how. The first time I recognized the fact that he was testing my boundaries, and this is very common with follows, he let me drive. So now I'm sitting in his life and he's putting his hands in my, you know, primary area, but he's, but it's only briefly, they're in the going. And, but I look back thinking about it and it started probably, oh, we need to stretch here. Let's do a split level. We got to make sure your thighs are in. So now he's introducing that, being close to my private area. And so, I mean, unfortunately, follows are good at what they do. That's why that's 110 kids before they finally get cold or something like that. That guy looked that up. But, you know, I mean, unfortunately, that's the case. Jeff had been normalizing physical touch with Jody, and with the other boys for months before he deemed it was safe to escalate. But along with pressing the boundaries of physical touch, Jeff began to tighten his emotional control. In March of 1983, the fighting team was invited to go to Houston for a weekend to watch a karate tournament. They would make the four-hour drive with Jeff, stay in a hotel overnight, go to the tournament, and then go to Astral World, a theme park, before spending one more night in the hotel, and then heading back to Baton Rouge. Now Jody couldn't go on the first trip because he had a basketball tournament, but his brothers went. When they returned, they, along with Jeff, talked all about how much fun they had. Jeff repeatedly said that Jody should have been there, and he began to feel like he was really missing out. Now it's important to note that by this time, the plowshays had absolutely no reason to suspect that Jeff was up to anything nefarious. And around this same time, Jeff had begun spending more time with the plowshays. Who would join them for family game nights, and had essentially become a part of the family. Everyone trusted Jeff, and they loved him. So him taking the kids to a karate tournament across state lines didn't raise any eyebrows. At the time, June and Gary thought of him as a close friend, and truly at the time, they needed someone to help out. The couple's relationship had been rapidly deteriorating, and soon, Jody's dad moved out of the house. By the time April rolled around, when the fighting team was invited to join an tournament in Houston, the plowshays encouraged the kids to go. Gary even tagged along, joining not necessarily to watch over his kids, but to have a good time with Jeff. When Jody got second in the competition, Jeff was thrilled, but that thrill was short-lived. After he competed, Jody asked Jeff if he could leave early to explore the city. Jeff became irate telling him, "If I had known that you'd rather be doing something else than karate, I would have left you at home." Jody was stunned. Jeff hadn't spoken to him this way before, and after so many weeks of glowing in Jeff's praise, it felt like a huge slap to the face. Jeff continued to rant, adding, "You're good, one of my best fighters, none of my students have gotten second place in their first tournament." Jody wanted to please Jeff, so he stayed. But this demand for Jody's whole life to be about karate began to have a chokehold on the 10-year-old. Because in reality, it wasn't about karate. It was about Jeff. Jeff wanted Jody's complete and total attention, and Jeff was an adult, a coach, someone that Jody wanted to make proud. So when Jeff urged him to quit basketball, baseball, and football, which he loved to prove his dedication, Jody didn't hesitate. At its core, in Jeff's mind, it was Jody dedicating himself to him. At the same time, it was Jody becoming isolated, which meant that Jeff's escalating abuse would be easier to keep The night after as the 8 p.m. people who attended the tournament merged into one room. Jeff made sure that Jody was beside him in bed. They were squished, one adult and three children per bed. Jody's youngest brother was curled up with his dad in the next bed over, along with the two other younger siblings. Jody was on one side of Jeff, with his brother Baba on the other. This was the first of many long nights for Jody, and it speaks to the level of control that people like Jeff hold over their victims. Because even with his father just feet away, Jody said nothing, as Jeff began to rub at his privates. He didn't want his parents to get upset. So as a grown man broke 10, 10-year-old Jody desperately tried to pretend to be asleep. The position that he was in is absolutely heartbreaking. Unable to say anything in a room full of people, some of whom were his own family, Jody was unable to ask for help, because he had been so conditioned to trust and admire his coach. No child should have the responsibility of stopping a pedophile. Jody never should have been put into this position, because years prior, adults should have done their job to protect children, and Jeff should have been put behind bars. When Jeff was 17, he was arrested for molesting a child. Details are unavailable and fuzzy because unfortunately, Jeff was never formally charged and the arrest was erased from his record. Let that sink in. A man who had molested a young boy was set free with no consequences, no counseling, and worst of all, no warning to the public. In addition, according to Jody's book Why Gary Why, some members of Jeff's family openly admitted that Jeff had molested family members for several years, yet he became a karate teacher. No one was aware. No one knew the threat that this seemingly kind innocent man really posed. As it happens so often with child molesters, he was passed off as someone else's problem. That problem became Jody, his family, and his communities. The day after Jeff touched Jody in his sleep, the team went to astral world. It was really any 10-year-old boy's dream, a theme park full of sugary foods, thrilling coasters, and minimal supervision. But that day, it felt more like a nightmare to Jody. He was still trying to push down what had happened to him the previous night when Jeff lobbed something else new at him. It was pouring rain that day. The skies were overcast, and after riding on a water ride, Jody's white shorts became fairly see-through. Jeff repeatedly made comments and jabs about Jody's crotch being visible. Imagine hearing that as a child from an adult man, someone that you're supposed to be able to trust. Once more, this is something that pedophiles do, broach sexual topics or parts of the body in a joking way so that it's harder to confront them. Jody had no choice but to laugh along, acting like he was part of the joke. But inside, he felt sick to his stomach, humiliated, and alone. No one knew the turmoil that he was going through. And the turmoil only got worse from there. The weekend after the tournament in Houston, the team decided to have a crawfish boil. Jody remembers being thrilled. And even more so when Jeff told the team that they'd be catching all of the crawfish themselves, Jeff drove the kids down to Conway Bayou, near Sorrento, Louisiana. Now, Jeff could have picked a million creeks within spitting distance of Baton Rouge to take the kids hunting for crawfish. Instead, he chose somewhere out of the way, which meant he'd be staying the night in a hotel. When they got there, it became clear that he hadn't picked this spot because it was good for crawfish hunting. Now, if they had been hunting for snakes or alligators, it would have been perfect. In his book, Jody mentions that no one should have ever taken children there. The dark waters were full of venomous snakes. Alligators hovered around the boat. Unblinking eyes focused on the kids. Now, whether this was a tactic used by Jeff to scare them, or if he simply didn't care, we'll never know. What we do know is that crawfish weren't what he was really hunting for that day. That night, in the hotel once more, Jody found himself pretending to sleep beside his coach. Only this time, it was even worse. Jeff aggressively stroked and groped Jody, rubbing his skin raw. As an adult, Jody remembers how much it hurt, but also the fury that was going through his mind. In his book, he wrote out the thoughts that were churning through him for hours. Why the hell won't he go to sleep? I have fun with him, but every time I try to go to sleep, he keeps rubbing my dick. This needs to stop. It's a quote from his book. As Jeff continued to touch him, Jody feigned sleep. Finally, night turned to morning, and Jody knew with absolute certainty that what Jeff had been doing wasn't an accident. Though Jeff had never addressed it with Jody, that was about to change. The next day at the crawfish boil, Jeff claimed that he needed to run to the store to grab something. He invited Jody, who felt like he couldn't say no. On the ride to the store, Jeff cut to the chase. abruptly, he told Jody not to tell his parents about what had happened last night. Jody replied, I was asleep. I don't know what you're talking about. You have to imagine how terrified and alone Jody must have felt. His only safe option was to pretend that it wasn't happening at all. He couldn't tell Jeff to stop, and he felt that he couldn't tell his parents what had happened. But Jeff knew Jody had been awake. He persisted. You don't tell your parents what I do, do you? Jody didn't. But instead of saying that, he replied, do what? And just like that, Jeff knew that Jody wasn't going to tell anyone. He was too embarrassed, too trapped, too afraid. From then on, Jeff's abuse of Jody leaked into every aspect of his life. If Jeff stayed at Jody's house overnight on the couch, as he sometimes did, he would sneak up stairs when Jody was taking a bath and masturbate him. He knew when and how to do it, so that Jody's parents had no idea what was happening. And just like that, nowhere was safe. Imagine being a 10-year-old boy and not even being safe at home in your own bathtub in your own room. It's impossible to overstate the evil that it takes for someone to take that safety away from a child, but Jeff relished in it. And sadly, he continued to take things further and further. On Saturday, April 16, 1983, Jody, his brothers, and other members of the team attended a tournament in Houston. On the ride home, Jeff leaned into Jody and whispered to him, "Tonight, I'm going to suck your dick." In his book, Jody explains what his initial reaction was, and it's heartbreaking, "Why would he want to do that? I pee out of that thing," end quote. That night, once the movie The Boys were watching in the hotel room ended, Jeff did what he said he was going to do. Jody writes, "Jeff ducked under the covers like one of the snakes I'm so afraid of and performed oral sex on me," end quote. From that point on, Jeff forcibly performed oral sex on Jody almost every day, sometimes several times a day. Once again, no one had any idea that this was happening. And it's important to remember here that that's not because the people around Jody were dumb. It's because Jeff was a cold-blooded rapist and pedophile whose sole mission in life was to trick the people around him and molest children. By the time May rolled around, Jeff once more escalated. In the car one day, he nonchalantly told Jody, "Now I'm going to fuck you." Jody would later say that icy fear crept through his body. He remembered thinking to himself, "He's serious." And because of the open conversations his mother had about him, not just about sex, but sexuality, he knew what that meant. From that point on, after Jeff forcibly performed oral sex on Jody, he would anally rape him. The abuse lasted for nearly a year, almost every single day, and sometimes up to five times a day. It's impossible to imagine the horror, rage, and confusion that Jody felt. This was a man who, at times, took care of him, who doted on him with gifts, experiences, and fun weekends away. But when they were alone, he did horrible things to him. Jody remembered thinking, "I like Jeff, but I wish he didn't use me for sex," end quote. His feelings were incredibly complicated, and he had no one to help untangle the web that he found himself trapped in. And as more time passed, that trap got more constricting. - At family game nights, Jody would sit next to Jeff, watching TV or chatting with the adults for the entire night. He could hear kids playing outside, his brothers and sister, neighbors and cousins, but he knew he couldn't join them. If he did, Jeff would yell at him the instant they got alone. He would berate him, accusing Jody of not loving him, and at karate, he would force him to run extra laps until he could no longer continue. The emotional and physical abuse that Jody would be subjected to wasn't worth an hour of fun and freedom with his friends. At these same game nights, Jeff would subtly ask the boys what they had done during the week. If he discovered that Jody had done something as simple as go to the store with his father, he would lash out at him, saying things like, "Oh, so you love your dad more than me, is that it?" The guilt trips were just too much for Jody, as they would be for any child. Jody was drowning, the adults whom he had always gone to talk to were now off limits. He couldn't tell his friends what was happening. He couldn't do, go, or be who he wanted to be. The only place that he felt safe was ironically when he was fighting. Jody could lay it all out on the mat. Every ounce of fear, frustration and loneliness went into his kicks and parts. punches. Everyone knew that he was the team's best fighter, but no one knew why. In July of 1983, a tournament in Fort Worth, Jody annihilated every competitor he faced, so easily and with so much power that the refs had to warn him to hit softer, or he would be disqualified. In the end, all that built up anger landed him in first place, but it didn't feel good. What had driven him to fight was that need for catharsis, and after he let it out, he was left with his abusers standing before him, congratulating him. Everyone believed that Jeff had trained a winner, but it took an outsider to realize that something was deeply, deeply wrong. Jody's uncle Jeff lived just outside of Fort Worth. Jody was going to spend the weekend with his uncle at his home, rather than with Jeff in a hotel room. When he dropped Jody off at his uncle's house, his uncle immediately knew that something was wrong. Here's an interview with Jeff Ploshay in the documentary a time to kill. Just so you're aware, he is speaking through a tracheostomy tube, so you might have to listen closely. Something's not right, I don't even kiss my kids on the mouth. To Jody as an adult, this is a clear example of the grooming that his parents went through. They had come to accept their careful long-term manipulation that Jeff was a loving, affectionate man, and that he deeply cared about the kids in a way that was like a big brother, not sexual. They saw Jeff as a soft, kind person who had pecked the kids on the cheek when he said goodbye to them. They brushed off Uncle Jeff's concerns for two reasons. Firstly, they had been conditioned to believe that this was just normal, and that Jeff Duset was a good man. Secondly, Uncle Jeff and Jeff Duset had gotten into an unrelated argument earlier that day. After Jeff Duset, playfully tapped Jody's cousin on the back of the head. The Ploshays believed that Uncle Jeff was just angry about the earlier misunderstanding, and because of that, he just didn't like Jeff Duset. But the reality was, Uncle Jeff saw something that everyone else missed, not because they were careless, but because Jeff Duset was so manipulative, and Jody's own words, quote, "so good at being a pedophile," unquote. On one occasion, when Jeff was living at the karate gym after forfeiting his apartment, the Ploshays went above and beyond to help him. I remember one time my dad felt so bad for him because we were going to eat family dinner, and my dad started crying, and he's like, he's so pitiful. And I'm like, what? And he goes, he just, he doesn't have anybody, so my dad picked him up, wrote him home, let him shower, gave him some fresh shirt to wear, and then took him to my grandparents house to eat Sunday dinner that we did every Sunday. To the Ploshays, Jeff wasn't a threat because that's how he had designed it. They didn't just love him, they felt bad for him. Yet, unbeknownst to them, for the next several months, Jody was trapped in the cycle of Jeff's abuse. He no longer had the sports that he had loved so dearly, guilt free time with his parents or friends, or autonomy over his own body. Jeff was constantly with his family, and at the time, Jeff was struggling financially due to his own greed. It wasn't just a place to go, to shower, and to stay that the Ploshays offered him. It was job connections. You see, Jeff thought he was an entrepreneur. He had designed bandanas for LSU, which he called Tiger Rags, and it sold a few to the owner of a local chain of gas stations. He made the bandanas for a dollar, sold them to the store owner for $2, and the store owner sold them for $3. It was an easy moneymaker, or it would have been, had Jeff not been who he was. Sometime in 1983, Jeff agreed to have 15,000 bandanas made in exchange for $15,000 upfront, then another $15,000 upon delivery of the bandanas to the store owner. The problem was, Jeff immediately used the initial $15,000 to buy himself a van. Perhaps the worst part of all of this is that Jody's father is the one who introduced Jeff to the business owner whom he scammed. He had vouched for Jeff, and Jeff was going behind his back, obviously in more ways than one. Leading up to the new year, people all over Baton Rouge were hunting for Jeff to set. Not only had he scammed the owner of the gas stations, but he had been writing bad checks for months. People were out to get him, and the walls were starting to close in. On March 14, 1984, Jeff was due to report to court, and paid $10,000 for his bandanas scam. By February, Jeff was panicking. He started having Jody forge his mother's signature on checks in an attempt to get the money. When he wasn't having Jody forge checks, he was rambling about how he was going to leave Baton Rouge. On more than one occasion, he told Jody, "There's no way I can get the money, but when I leave, I'm taking you with me." For Jody, there was no way to say no. It was as if he were tied to railroad tracks and could see the train barreling towards him from a distance. Even worse, at night, Jeff was sleeping in the shed on June's property. Jody would sneak him blankets, pillows, and food. It was yet another secret that Jody was forced to keep. On February 19, 1984, Jody knew something was wrong. There was around 9 am when Jeff knocked on the door and was invited in, as always. He told June that his brother had dropped him off. He told June that his brother had dropped him off in the area earlier. Before he had gone on the other side of town to do a carpet installation at a client's house. Jeff wanted to drive over and help him. So he asked if he could borrow June's car. And this wasn't totally out of the ordinary. At this point, Jeff was essentially family. They trusted him. So, June agreed to give in the car. But as Jody overheard this, his heart was pounding. He knew that Jeff was lying. For starters, Jeff and his brother hadn't been on speaking terms in weeks. And secondly, the night prior, Jody had brought Jeff blankets and a meal in the shed. He had been there all night. And Jody had a feeling deep in his gut that this was it. When Jeff invited him to tag along and check out how the installation was going, his suspicions were concerned. The instant Jody sat down in the car, Jeff started the engine, looked at him, and confidently said, "We're going to California." Jody didn't protest. There was no point. He looked out of the window as Baton Rouge disappeared behind him. But the city and Bayou vanishing wasn't all he spotted. On the atchifalaya bridge, heading west out of Baton Rouge, Jody locked eyes with a classmate named Christie. Unbeknownst to him, she would be the first eyewitness to his kidnapping. Later, when he returned, she would become his very first girlfriend, and someone he credits for helping him return to normalcy. But unfortunately, he had a long journey ahead of him before he would see any normalcy again. The first leg of the drive led him to Port Arthur, Texas, where Jeff's mother, Elliott, lived. They stayed there for three days. Imagine for a second how agonizing those three days were for June and Gary. Their son had vanished in their car with a man they would have trusted their lives with. They didn't know if it was a kidnapping or an accident, but as the days slogged on and a dizzying anxiety-induced blur, they became clear. On Tuesday, June called Elliott asking if Jeff and Jody were there. Elliott confirmed they were. To this day, Jody claims that Elliott had no idea that he had been kidnapped. And that, just like everyone else, she had been tricked by Jeff. June frantically told Elliott that Jeff had kidnapped Jody and that she was calling the police, and quickly Jeff leapt into damage control. He told both he and Jody's mother that he was going to New York and that he would drop Jody off on the way. At this point, June wasn't buying anything that Jeff said. As soon as he hung up, she called Jody's uncle Robert, who was a cop, and the two drove straight to Port Arthur themselves. They arrived at Elliott's house to learn that they were in our late. Jeff and Jody had already left. Despite June's best efforts, she wouldn't see her son for several more days. And when she did finally see him, they would be in front of television cameras. In the meantime, Jeff's sister had plenty to share with Robert and June. She disclosed every detail she knew about Jeff's history of molesting children, and June was sick to her stomach. Robert was ready to kill Jeff on site, and he wasn't the only one. Thinking ahead, June contacted Mike Barnett, a major with the Baton Rouge Police Department, who then contacted the FBI in relation to the case. Since Jeff had crossed state lines, it was their jurisdiction, and that made all the difference. The FBI quickly put a wire on the Pelosi's home phone, knowing that in time, if they were lucky, Jeff would call. Are you ready to have your mind blown? I want you now to imagine that in front of you was a locked door, symbolizing all that you know. Everything you've been taught in your time on Earth. The lies your government has fed you. With my podcast, The Conspiracy Files, I now give you the door's key. And once you've listened to the show, you finally unlock this door and step inside. Beyond the door is another dimension. A dimension of false narratives, a dimension of hidden evidence, a dimension of truth, lies, and murders. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance of deadly secrets and explosive ideas. You've just crossed over into the Conspiracy Zone." I'm your host, Colin Brown. Join me now on this journey into the world of secret pedophile rings, government cover-ups, and suspicious suicides. On my new show, The Conspiracy Files, available now on all streaming platforms. As Jody's parents spiraled and fought to get every resource they could, Jody looked out the window of a bus, leaving a depot in Orange, Texas. Jeff had managed to scrape up enough money to buy them a bus ticket to Los Angeles. Jeff believed that they could get a fresh start there, posing as father and son. On the long, several day bus ride, that's what he told everyone around them. In the book Why Gary Why, Jody writes quote, "He charmed them, like always. He deceived them, like always, and they loved him, like always." No one on the bus suspected a thing. In fact, they were clinging to Jeff's every word with the stories he told about his hunt for work in California to support his son. Jody said, "Very little." His eyes were locked outside, watching as an entirely new landscape passed him by. In El Paso, he marveled at all the lights twinkling in the desert night, and Tucson, when they made it through a border patrol checkpoint, he watched as Jeff's panic slowly subsided. Leading up to the checkpoint, Jeff had been frantic, afraid they had been caught. In anticipation, he had even shaved off his beard, when their new friends on the bus asked him why. Jeff convincingly told them that he was being proactive for his upcoming job, where they wouldn't want him to have a beard. The women on the bus praised him for thinking ahead. And once more, that just gives us an insight into how good he was at manipulating. Even in the midst of kidnapping the child he had been sexually abusing, he somehow convinced the people around him that he was a saint. But for those few days, despite being in the middle of an actual kidnapping, Jody said, he felt peace. So I was asked this recently, and you got to understand, I had been being raped from May of '83 till February of '84. So the sexual abuse part was kind of normal. So to me, as an 11-year-old taken a bus from Orange, Texas to Los Angeles, California, and to see the Hollywood sign, to go to Disneyland, that was a damn vacation for me, because the two days on the bus he couldn't molest me, so that was a break. Jody was fast asleep when the pair arrived in downtown Los Angeles. When morning dawned on the city, Jeff took him walking downtown to get something to eat. All in all, the kidnapping wasn't one of the worst experiences that Jody had with Jeff, which is hard for some people to believe. But during the kidnapping, Jeff was on alert. He was so anxious about getting caught that his sexual arousal was at an all-time low, which thankfully meant that in all of this turmoil, Jody got a bit of respite. The morning they arrived in LA, the two eight breakfast, and watched a filming of the popular police show, Hill Street Blues. It was one of Jody's favorite shows, which actually made for a moment of light in all of the darkness. At the time, Jody didn't realize it, but as an adult, Jody now realizes how much darker the situation could have gotten. Jeff was out of money by the time they arrived in Los Angeles, and selling Jody to other pedophiles certainly wouldn't have been off the table. In fact, a few days after they arrived, Jeff asked if Jody would be willing to sleep with other men for money. In reality, he was asking if Jody would agree to get raped so that he could get paid. Jody said no, and surprisingly, Jeff didn't press the issue further. In a desperate bid to get money, Jeff bought a karate magazine and flipped to the back to find any names he recognized. Al Garza, a coach from Houston, left out at him. The two certainly weren't close, but they had met at several tournaments. Desperate, Jeff called him using the number in the magazine. He told him that he and his team were at a tournament in LA, but that their van had broken down. He needed $600 wired to him so that he could get the team home. In a selfless move, Al agreed, sending him the money through Western Union. To this day, Jody credits Al with potentially saving him from being sold to countless other pedophiles. The thought is heartbreaking, and at the same time, it shows the power that one thoughtful and giving action can have. While Jody's parents panicked 2,000 miles away, Jeff was spiraling in the Golden State. He dragged Jody to Kenoga Park and the San Fernando Valley of LA, looking desperately for a job. When he couldn't find one, the two took a bus to Anaheim, settling into the Samoa Motel in room 38. It was just blocks away from Disneyland. Jody had never been to Disney, and the prospect of going was beyond exciting. He could see a few of the rides peeking above the buildings from the Motel, a promise of what was to come. And sadly, he wasn't just allowed to enjoy this moment. That night, Jeff felt safe, like they had successfully gotten away. And that night, he raped Jody repeatedly all night long. Above all else, Jody remembered being annoyed. He wanted to go to Disneyland the next day, and he was desperate for Jeff to leave him alone and just go to sleep. That's just a reminder of how young and how desensitized to the trauma he was facing, Jody had become. In the midst of hours of rape, he was clinging to the idea that when the sun rose, he would be going to Disney for the very first time. The next morning, Jody felt a wave of relief. Inside the walls of the park, he knew he was safe, and he was eager to have a good time in spite of everything he was facing. He went on all the rides, ate chocolate-covered frozen bananas, and even ate at the cage and inspired restaurant at the park. Jody remembers being disgusted by the gumbo he ordered, who wasn't even close to the stuff that his family made back at home. They'll back at home, no one was eating. June lost 15 pounds over the course of her son's disappearance. She and Gary, despite being separated, sat by the phone all hours of the day, awaiting calls from Jeff or Jody. When he did call, which was surprisingly often, FBI agents coached June through what to say in order to get more information. Jeff insisted that they were in New York, but when June asked him to say the time, he gave the time it was in Los Angeles, three hours earlier than it was in New York. Bit by bit, police were putting together the path that Jeff and Jody had taken, and bit by bit, Jeff was losing what little sense he had. On February 29, 1984, Jeff allowed Jody to place a collect call from the hotel room. Thankfully, and all that Jeff was, he wasn't the brightest. I don't want to give kidnapping tips, but if you ever kidnap a 11-year-old boy, don't call their parents collect, he let me call my mother collect, and immediately my mother asked for time and charges, which for those people who are too young to understand what collect is. If you were calling not from your phone, the other person would pay for it. So we were calling from the motel. My mother agreed to pay for the phone call, and so when she asked for time and charges, that meant the operator, for those who were too young, go Google, Jim Kroche, and learn what an operator is. So the operator came back on and said, look, it was, you know, 20 minutes, and it was $38. So she asked for the time, how long it was, and the charges, how much it cost. Well then Mike Borneck got on the phone and said, look, this is a, you know, FBI investigation. We didn't know the exact location of that phone call, and they got it. The operator told the FBI agent that the call had come from room 38 of the Samoa Motel in Anaheim, California. Once again, agents in California were sent to the motel to rescue Jody. Everything happened fast. The door to the room flew open, and a handful of officers barged into the room. Guns drawn and pointed directly, not only at Jeff, but at Jody too. Jody remembers feeling as though there were hundreds of police officers in the room. He watched the frantic scene as an officer slammed Jeff against the wall. The officer growled. I had a punch you in the fucking mouth. And the image of Jeff pinned against the wall is the last one that Jody has of him. It was the last time he ever saw Jeff do set a live in the flesh. People who hear about this case often think that Jody must have been relieved, but the reality is much, much more complicated than that. You see, at the time, despite what Jeff had done to him, Jody viewed him as his friend. When police questioned him for two hours about Jeff, Jody denied that he had sexually assaulted him whatsoever. At the time, he was angry that the police had arrested his friend. And yet, he was equally scared of telling the truth. In his bug, he explains, quote, "In my mind, if I told the truth, Jeff would come after me, and I was naturally afraid. I made sure that I didn't say anything. until the hospital report came back. Then, Jeff couldn't say that I got him in trouble. I would be guilt-free and not the person who ratted him out, end quote. That night, a rape kit was performed on Jody. He was terrified as they swamped him. Yet, at the same time, he felt a wave of relief. He knew that when those test results finally came back, he would be able to stop lying. At 1 a.m. on March 1st, 1984, Jody boarded a plane at LAX bound for home. It was his very first time flying. He watched as the lights of Los Angeles gave way to the Pacific Ocean. And then, he slept the rest of the way across the country. When he woke up, he could see sunlight streaking over the bayou's below. And he knew he had to be close to home. Now, everyone expected the reunion to be a happy one, but inside, Jody was sick to his stomach. He wasn't sure he was happy to be home. He was conflicted, terrified about what happened to his friend, and terrified about what was going to happen when the truth finally came out. As he walked off the plane, he got a taste of what awaited him for the next few years of his life, television cameras. While his parents waited to greet him, cameras from local and far away stations were rolling, eager to get a shot of the reunion. Jody was, in his own words, pissed. He didn't want to be on camera. He wasn't even sure how he felt about being home. But as he approached his parents, he had no choice. There was just nothing like it. He was there. He was okay. He was home. I finally, finally knew for the first time in 10 days of where my son was. Joondon recognized her son until he was 10 feet away from her. In California, Jeff had died Jody's golden hair at dark black in an attempt to conceal his identity. In a way, it worked. Jody pointed to his hair before his mother recognized him and came running, embracing him. His father, Gary, followed both of them sobbing, hugging and kissing their son. News cameras up, both their way in, peppering the family with questions. As a parent in your position, did you learn anything from this? Yes, how much? I love my children. I might be a little bit more protective or over-protective, I don't know. How do y'all feel now? Fantastic. Fantastic. I don't think it was as good. I love that. [LAUGHTER] We just ended up. What do you think about this whole thing? I don't know. I didn't know was accurate. There's no guidebook for how anyone, yet alone a child, should feel in a situation like this. Jody was confused, lost, scared, angry, and relieved all at once. How do you sum that up in a sound bite for the media when you are a terrified, 11-year-old boy? He was quickly swept away from the cameras. His family made the hour-long drive back to Baton Rouge, where, instead of peace, more questioning a way to Jody. Mike Barnett, who had originally gotten the FBI involved, tried to get him to open up. But Jody gave him the cold shoulder. He refused to laugh at his jokes and ignored him, answering his questions with one word answers. Of course, you can't blame him. And sadly, things got even worse. Jody was taken into a room and questioned by more detectives for over two hours. What began as calm, comforting chatter slowly transcended into screaming and accusations by the police. They threatened Jody, demanding that he admit that Jeff had touched him. Though Jody was terrified, he continued to deny that anything had happened. He wasn't ready to rat out Jeff. He couldn't handle what that meant. Eventually, the police conceded, telling his parents that either Jeff hadn't touched him, or he was so brainwashed that he would never admit that he had. Fortunately, Jody didn't have to be the first one to admit it. On March 8th, 1984, June told her son that Mike Barnett wanted to speak with them at the station. I see fear shot through Jody. He knew that there was only one explanation. The results from his rape kit had come back. He was terrified. The idea of the meeting hung over his head the entire day. And for hours, he contemplated telling the police that it hadn't been Jeff that had assaulted him, but some stranger in the hotel. Eventually, he realized that there was no point. The rape kit would open the door to the truth, and he would tell the rest of it, no matter how hard it was. Down the street, his parents sat at the kitchen table. Across from them, Mike Barnett delivered news that was their worst nightmare. He told them that the rape kit was positive. Sperm had been found in Jody's rectum. Gary and June began to sob. Over and over through his tears, Gary repeated one thing. Jeff is a dead motherfucker. June knew just how much Gary meant that, and she wasn't the only one. But with Gary angry, June had to take on another role. I didn't know, I didn't know. This is a scene. But he feels so guilty. I mean, that's your baby. Then came the act. Then came the act. No tears, come. Throughout the upcoming months, June never broke down in front of her son. When she picked him up from school that day, she sat Jody down on the couch and told him calmly that the rape kit had come back positive. Jody, knowing but not ready to say it, asked, what does that mean? June replied, that means Jeff fooled with you. After a year of sexual abuse, Jody nodded, looked up, and told his mother, he did. To Jody, it was the biggest relief he could possibly imagine. It felt as though a wait that had been suffocating him had finally lifted. And he didn't just tell his mother the test was right. He gave her details, spilling his soul to her, confiding in her, and feeling safe in her unconditional love. I was comforted in her calmness. So it allowed me to open up and feel comfortable to talk about it more. And I felt like the way to the world would have been lifted off my shoulders. I felt like, OK, I can be me again. In Jody's book, he highlights just how important this was. His mother's reaction, her calm understanding, allowed him to heal in a way that many others struggled to do. Children not only reflect their parents' emotions, but they carry them with them. Had his mother began to scream and sob, he would have felt the need to protect her. Instead, her outward sense of calm allowed Jody to express himself and it made all the difference. After admitting the truth, he went out to play with his friends. He distinctly remembers just how freeing that felt. How, for the first time in over a year, he could be himself again. For a few days, life went on in the new normal. His disappearance brought his parents closer together, and his dad stayed with the family as they welcomed Jody home. At school, Jody used humor to cope and make his friends feel more comfortable with what had happened to him. When he walked into the school the very first day after the kidnapping, the room was silent. Unbeknownst to him, his core group of friends had decided that they weren't going to mention the kidnapping. Yet when they saw him, they looked at him like they were staring at a ghost. Jody looked at his friends, shrugged and said, what are y'all looking at? Y'all are staring at me like I've been kidnapped or something. His friends burst into laughter. To this day, humor is something that Jody uses to cope with what happened to him. If you watch just a single interview with him, you'll see how hard it is not to laugh in spite of the subject matter. For him and those around him, the humor has been healing. But at home, no one was quite ready for laughter. On Thursday, March 15th, Jody sat with his father and mother watching an LSU basketball game. Though Jody had told everything to his mother, he hadn't discussed the abuse with his father. In the past, his father had said he would kill anyone if they heard his children. And for good reason, Jody believed him. He made his mother promise that she wouldn't tell his father any details about what happened to him, and she had agreed. But that night, as he curled up in bed, he could hear the echoes of his parents speaking in low whispers in the living room. He was terrified that his mother was telling his father what had happened to him. But the reality was much, much worse. Jody was begging Gary to give back the 38 snub-nose revolver that he had taken from the couple's cabinet. Gary refused. And in just a few hours, the entire world would see what he was going to do with it. Around the same time that Gary and June were arguing over the gun, Mike Barnett and Bud Conor of the Baton Rouge Police Department were flying to Los Angeles to extradite Jeff Ducet. By noon on Friday, March 16th, Jeff was loaded up on flight 595. He was teary and anxious. On the flight, he rambled to the police, telling them that he wanted to confess. He described his childhood, stating that he had been molested and sold to men from a young age. And surprisingly, he admitted to molesting Jody, but claimed that he had only done it 10 times. When Jody heard this as an adult, he scoffed, saying, quote, yeah, 10 times on a good weekend, maybe, end quote. But on the several hour flight back home, Jeff was sobbing so hard he could hardly speak at times. He claimed that he would have stopped if Jody had said, know, but that he and Jody loved one another and that they enjoyed being so close. This, of course, is a lie, and a common one that pedophiles will tell in an attempt to absolve themselves of their horrible actions. And Jeff even took this a step further. He told the detectives that he had been in love with and molested three other boys, and that he wanted to speak to their families to apologize and ensure that they got "proper psychological help." The police heard him out and said that they would see. However, they had no idea what was waiting for them in Baton Rouge. As the flight was incoming, Gary could no longer take not knowing. He went to the Colton Club, a favorite bar of his, and found himself sitting next to the program director for WBRZ, Baton Rouge's local ABC affiliate. My dad used to work for a TV station called WBRZ, and he was friends with everybody, and he used to entertain people about half a mile from WBRZ on Highland Road, right there by LSU, and that's where he entertained clients. Well, that Friday, March 16th, my day was in there. As usual, he was eating gumbo because Friday in March, they served gumbo, and Bob Chidill was the program director for Channel 2, and he looked at my dad, and he's like, "Look, when are they bringing your boy back?" And my dad was like, "I think he's back already, but they're not going to tell me." And he goes, "I'll go find out." So he went to the payphone and he called Channel 2, found out what time Jeff was coming back and told my dad. So, in order to say, "Oh, do you think they created a new story?" Absolutely, but I don't think they created the new story they got. I think they wanted my dad to go make a scene, confrontation, yell at him, try to hit him, try to punch him, get arrested. No one could have possibly prepared for the new story that they were going to get. Gary already had an inkling of what he was going to do, but he wanted to confirm something before he acted. From a payphone, Gary called June and demanded to know if Jeff had made Jody suck his dick. June refused to answer until finally she cracked, admitting that he had. In her mind, it didn't make a difference. She knew the truth, far more than Gary, and that was just one drop in a massive ocean of horrible things her son had been forced to do. Gary hung up and called a friend, Jim Adams. He told Jim that he couldn't stand it anymore, and that he was going to the airport to shoot Jeff. Jim tried to talk him out of it, but Gary hung up and drove straight to the airport. Jim contacted the Baton Rouge police department, demanding that they get in contact with Mike Barnett to warn him. But Mike was on the plane, and for whatever reason, they didn't seem to understand the gravity of what was about to happen at the airport. Gary arrived at the airport at about 830 that evening, dressed in a striped shirt, a white hat, and sunglasses. He was able to disappear into the crowd. He settled at a line of 12 payphones that sat just before the metal detectors that led to the terminals. He knew that when Jeff got off the plane, he would have to come through right behind him. So he turned his back to the news camera, operated by Abraham McGill, and once more, he dialed his friend Jim. Now his face was hidden within the booth yet, when the camera began to roll, he was right and framed. Gary kept his back turned. Even as he saw Mike Barnett come around the corner in his peripheral, Gary knew that when the camera lights shown on him, it meant that Jeff was behind him, and with Jeff behind him, it would come time to strike. As the cameras rolled, Jeff do set looked right at the camera as he walked through the terminal. He licked his lips, and to some, he almost looked proud. But that feeling, whatever it was, wouldn't last for long. With his finger shaking on the phone, Gary told his friend, "I'm pulling my gun out of my boot. You're going to hear a shot." Then the line went silent. What happened next was either justifiable or just revenge. The footage that you've just heard has been viewed over 20 million times. I'm sure hundreds upon hundreds million times more. And in reality, I'm sure it's more like a hundred million a billion times across the planet. This is one of the most infamous clips in the history of media. In the footage, Gary spins around and shoots a single shot from his revolver, which strikes Jeff do set, his former friend, directly in the head. The force of the bullet snapped his neck in two. By the time he hit the ground, he was already dead. Immediately, Gary put his hands up in surrender. Mike Barnett snapped, screaming out the now infamous line. "Why, Gary, why?" Meanwhile, Bud raced over to Jeff to take his pulse. When it was clear he was dead, he muttered "God damn," and closed Jeff's eyes. He turned to Gary, more angry at how close he had been to being shot than the dead man at his feet, and said, "Why in the fuck would you do that?" Gary was sobbing, through his tears as the two officers restrained him. He said, "If you had done that to your family, you would have done the same thing too. You don't know. You don't know what he did to Jody. Any father would have done it. I had to do it." Gary was then taken to jail. Meanwhile, the cameraman who recorded the entire incident quietly swapped the tape with a new one, desperate to keep the footage in case the police tried to seize it as evidence. He knew he had captured something controversial, something people would talk about for decades to come. Back at home, June turned on the TV a few minutes after Jeff was set to arrive. She had wanted to watch his arrival. The kids, including Jody, were with their father for the weekend. Or so she thought. In reality, they were with their grandparents at a camp about an hour north of Baton Rouge. There, Jody and his brothers were innocently trying to catch fish with their bare hands, completely unaware of what was unfolding back home. When June turned on the TV to the news, her entire world changed. She dropped to her knees and began to sob. She was screaming and sobbing so uncontrollably that her neighbors heard her and had to run over to help. But on the TV, a special bulletin red quote, "Unknown as saline guns down alleged kidnapper at the Baton Rouge airport." But that as saline wasn't unknown to June. She had married him, raised kids with him, and she knew above all that Gary would do anything he could to protect their kids. Soon enough, the police would arrive to search her home. The entire time June was in hysterics. In the background, the news played on and on. Witnesses at the scene stated, "The exit wound was just gushing blood." Up north, the kids were awakened abruptly and early by their grandparents. They urged the kids to hurry up and get in the car. But the kids were confused. They had just arrived at their camp and their dad hadn't even arrived yet. On the ride back to Baton Rouge, they repeatedly asked, "Where's daddy?" But they got no response. Jody knew something horrible had happened, but he felt that his father was alive. His grandparents seemed more terrified than they seemed upset, which made him think that perhaps his father had gotten a DUI or had gotten into an accident. He assumed that if his dad was dead, they would be crying. By 10am, they arrived at their grandparents' house. And shortly after, their mother and uncle Robert arrived. June wasn't wasting any time. She gathered her beloved children on the steps and told them calmly and seriously, "Last night, daddy shot Jeff. The first to say anything was Mikey. Jeff's younger brother, who simply replied, "Good." For Jody, though, it wasn't so easy. He began to cry and curse, screaming at his mother. In his book, Jody wrote, "I hated Jeff, but I loved Jeff at the same time." His twisted feelings were complicated even more by comments from everyone around him, stating that his dad had killed Jeff for him. To Jody, it was a slap in the face. He had never asked his dad to kill Jeff, and in his mind, initially, his father's actions were selfish. Complicating things even further, the headlines that were splashed around town were heartbreaking. Now, Jody's friends and the whole town knew for certain that he had been sexually abused, but also that his father was a murderer. It took a long time for Jody to come to terms with his father's actions. In the weeks following the shooting, he watched the footage over and over and over. He read every news article that he could find. Somehow, despite what he would think, seeing it in black and white and on the television screen turned his grief into acceptance, and Jody wasn't the only one who had to work through a confusing wave of emotions. Many community members viewed Gary as a hero, others viewed him as a murderer, and to some, he was something in between. To June, he was someone who loved his children, - More than his own life. - Did you ask Gary why? I didn't have to. Now it's probably when I said to him, at least you could have done, it was let me drive you. - Gary spent less than three full days in jail. On Monday morning, his $100,000 bail was posted by friends and members of their community. From there, he was put into a psychiatric hospital for several weeks for evaluation, which ended up being incredibly healing. While there, Jody was able to speak to his father and feel safe. At the time, he still didn't accept what his father did, but he was feeling more comfortable facing him. When Gary was released, he moved back into the family home. By then, he had quit drinking. And for the first time in years, Jody's parents were getting along and slowly, without pressure from his mother or father, Jody began to mend his relationship with his dad. They were able to talk to each other. And slowly, Jody was able to realize that the wall between himself and his father had all been started by Jeff. And now, together, they could begin the journey of tearing that wall down. - By the time the trial came along, Jody had grown comfortable having his father around again. As you can imagine, the trial was on TV's across America. It was a vigilante versus the system to some. A murderer versus the law to others. Dr. Edward P. O. Z, who examined Gary, determined that at the time of the shooting, he couldn't tell the difference between right and wrong. He stated, quote, "Gary Poshet developed a sense of righteous mission directed by what Gary sensed as the voice of Jesus telling him that if he did not kill his son's sexual molester, that the man would continue to harm his son and other children," end quote. On the stand, the jury learned details. Details that put them in the mindset of a man, who had, according to a psychiatrist, suffered from temporary insanity. When Gary was asked for details of the sexual abuse at the deposition, he responded, that he used to call him his little com catcher, him and the other kid, and that he's been fooling with him for about a year. Two months, two or three months after we put him in school, he started trying to fool with him. He put him in his lap to start out and he'd put him in his lap to drive. Then he'd take them to movies and stuff and rub them and stuff like that. And just a bunch gross nasty stuff, you know? I don't think details are going to help this any, do you? I mean, this is nasty, filthy shit, you know? And it makes me sick. After being told the details mattered, Gary continued. Well, he would suck him off about every day and screw him in his butt about as many times as he could per day. He heard his back one time and my brother-in-law went and rented a walker for him to help him. And he would prop up on the walker and get him in front of a mirror and screw him in the butt. He would do it at a McDonald's. He would do it anywhere he found possible to do it in a car. He would take a shirt off and wipe his thing with it and just throw shit rags out in the streets. And he was just, you know, I mean, just nasty, low-down, filthy stuff. He violated my son's rights, you know? It's hard to imagine any father or any person managing to stay sane with the knowledge of those horrible things happening to their child. Ultimately, to the shock of some and the delight of others, Gary pleaded no contest to manslaughter and he received a sentence of seven years which ended up being suspended by the judge. In the end, Gary was put on probation for five years and had to complete 300 hours of community service. Surprisingly, he didn't even lose his job despite having driven his company vehicle to the airport on the night that he shot Jeff Deusset. The judge stated that Gary posed no risk to the public and that putting him behind bars would not protect his community or serve a purpose. Instead, they allowed him to go home and be with his family to heal, which would go on to be a long journey. But just like his son, Gary preferred to heal through humor. About a year after the murder, Jody and his father went to a local health club. While there, they saw a man who looked strikingly similar to Jeff Deusset. Jody said that upon seeing him, he held his breath. He muttered to his dad, "Wow, I really thought that was him." Dad pan, his father responded, "I knew it wasn't." - Well, there was one moment, it was shortly after, before the adjudication of his sentencing, like before he even got in, died, I think. We were in a backyard and he was cooking hamburgers and so he lit the charcoal grill. And before he lit it, you know, he sprayed it with lighter fluid. And he looked at me and he goes, "You want to see Jeff?" And I was like, "No, I don't want to see Jeff." He goes, "If you do," and he lit the grill and he squirted the charcoal and the big flame came up, he goes, "Look down in the middle." (laughs) (soft music) - Now, in our line of work, we read about and speak to a lot of inspiring people. As many of you know, we've spoken to and worked with many victims, many survivors, and many family members of victims over the years. But Jodie Plouche may just be one of the most interesting and inspiring guests that we've ever had. Also, just like his dad, he's absolutely hilarious. After the assault and murder, Jodie excelled in high school, went to LSU to get a psychology degree and then became a sexual abuse victim services advocate in Northtown, Pennsylvania. In 2004, he was voted the survivor and activist of the year by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquents. His advocacy and transparency has helped thousands of people heal and come forward about what has happened to them. And his positive attitude is something that's impossible to miss. In his book, he wrote that part of his purpose for writing it was to help parents understand signs of child sexual abuse. In addition, he wanted to help his victims remember that they are so much more than what happened to them. In his words, quote, "Too many people have suffered under the erroneous belief that victimization defines their lives. A bad year does not equal a bad life. It is just a moment, or perhaps many moments, but you can get help and get to the other side of those moments and live a completely normal life. You cannot let a moment define you," end quote. His book, Why Gary Why, served as a guiding light for this episode, along with the interview we did. We urge you to read it and we'll use his own touchstone for the challenging, but informative, and enlightening read. Quote, "When you come to those passages that make you feel like you've been punched in the stomach, just remember that this is a story not just of survival, but of ultimately prevailing against that, which seems insurmountable." But like I said, I do love the fact that many people enjoy the fact that my father stands as a face for justice. I'll tell you what, I would not change anything. If I could relive my life, I would do it in a heartbeat. But my book has a lot of good information for parents. So if you're a parent, you have kids, and even if you're a victim, I think there's a lot of good information, because you don't have to be destroyed because something like that happens, because God damn it happens to most people. You just accept it, move on, and you don't have to be scored for life. You don't have to be a victim. I hate the term survivor, and I don't even like thrive, because I trust me, I'm not thriving right now. But you can be OK. In my book with a Helen Keller quote, and the world is full of suffering, but it's also full of the overcoming of it. And that's my take. On Tuesday, October 21, 2014, Gary Pluchet passed away in Baton Rouge, the city that he had called home his entire life. His relationship with his children was incredibly strong. And before he passed, when asked if he regretted what he had done, he said, no. On several occasions, he told Jody that the only thing he regretted was taking a human life. However, he didn't regret, in his opinion, saving countless other children from suffering the way that his son did. That was-- I never doubt that he's loved it. He was awesome. He's better than the memes. People say my dad's the father of the century, the decade, and I go again. Take away the shooting. He's still wins. He's still wins. I mean, he was a fucking awesome guy. I wish I could be like him, other than the shooting and the alcoholism. Speaking to Jody was an absolute pleasure. I know that I'm going to have him involved in another project that I'm working on in the future. and honestly. One can't help but admire the great things that Jody has done throughout his life, and the thousands, if not hundreds, of thousands, and millions of people's lives that he's helped to change through his work and advocacy over the years. He has walking proof that you can survive a terrible, terrible event and come out even better than you were before. In honor of Jody's story and his bravery, we will be donating to his charity of choice, the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault. They aim to end sexual violence in Louisiana, and they actively invest in social change by operating crisis centers and educational programs for youth and adults alike. Hey everybody, thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Murder in America. Obviously, it was absolutely awesome to be able to sit down with Jody for a few hours and listen to his story from his own mouth. I mean, I've read about this story so many times. I've seen that clip so many times on social media, but to be able to talk to Jody and understand kind of the meaning of everything and really dive into this story was incredibly special. And I think that this was a really important episode that if you would share, we would appreciate it because it contains a lot of information on how to detect grooming, how to recognize these patterns and individuals and how to keep you, your children, and your family safe. If you like what we do on Murder in America and you want to help support the show, please consider joining us on Patreon. On Patreon, you can get early ad free access to all of our episodes and you can also immediately get access to a massive library of bonus episodes. So if you love the show and you've never subscribed to our Patreon and you want to get access to those bonus episodes, we have, I don't even know exactly how many at this point, 110, 120 full length bonus episodes of the show, featuring Courtney and I doing our thing like we do on the main feed with full music production and sound and everything. So if you love the show and you want to support us, that's a great way to do it. Also, don't forget to follow us on Instagram @Murder in America to see photos from every single case that we cover. And yeah, I always ask this, but it really means a lot. If you guys could please just take 10 seconds out of your day and leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the show. Anyways, thank you guys for joining us for this very special episode. I hope everybody has an incredible weekend. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you all on the next one. [BLANK_AUDIO]